Posted by
Casper on Thursday, October 16, 2008 11:21:42 AM
This is an oft debated topic. Were the founding fathers active and devout Christians as so many among the Christian Right would have you to believe or were they were more pragmatic in their affairs and belief in God as some reconstructive historians would have you believe.
This is an interesting debate so as a historian I will give you my analysis of the question.
Of the 55 men who formed the Constitution 52 of them were active participants in their local churches. This alone however does not constitute what I would consider a devout Christian. To properly examine this question you have to look at the role of churches in 18th and 19th century America. These were gathering places. A place where neighbors could come together every Sunday for worship and fellowship. Few large cities existed in the time of the founding fathers, places like New York city and Philadelphia were nothing more than rural centers compared to todays cities and the populations were scattered across the countryside. For many church worship on Sunday morning was the only time they saw anyone other than their families. In this light we can draw no real conclusion from the church participation of these men.
Then there is the question of deism. Deism is a quasi-religious belief that God is aloof and does not interfere in the everyday affairs of man. Benjamin Franklin once considered himself a deist when he was a young man. He later repudiated that belief but still put off the Puritan view that one's soul can only be saved by God and not by good deeds alone.
An often quoted founding father by the Christian right, Noah Webster, who wrote the first dictionary said "No truth is more evident to my mind that that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and priviledges of a free people."
This would seem to overturn some of his earlier writings when he said "The very idea of a system of religious principles and a mode of worship, prescribed and established by human authority, is totally repugnant to the spirit of christianity. Every establishment is only a milder term for tyranny....It is an insult to humanity, a solemn mockery of all justice and common sense, to assume that right of entailing our opinion and formalities of devotion upon posterity, or to exclude them from the protection or emoluments of government for a non-conformity dictated by conscience."
I center my discussion here on Noah Webster because he is best known for arguing for the seperation of church and state. This idea leads to an interesting discussion because it requires us to review what Noah Webster meant when he argued this principle.
First of all the words "seperation of church and state" do not appear anywhere in the Constitution. The term comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in which he wrote "I contemplate with sovereign reverance that act of the whole American People which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof' thus building a wall of seperation between Church & State"
When any founding father spoke about religion it could be argued that they spoke only about Christianity. For many of them they wanted to create a world where man could worship God as he saw fit without raising the ire of the state because he refuses to worship in a way the government decrees. England had its Church of England while Spain and France followed the teachings of the Catholic faith. To the founding fathers, these churches were like governments all of them imposing their will on the people they were supposed to serve. They never wanted that in America so they prevented the founding of a single Christian church sanctioned by the Government of the United States. When the founding fathers created this country they thought they were building a nation where mankind could worship the "Chrisitan" God as they saw fit.
The unfortunate consequence of the First Amendment is the removal of prayer in schools. Let's go back to the words of Noah Webster for a moment. “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.”
Abraham Lincoln wrote: "In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."
So is this a Christian nation? The answer was Yes but one could make a strong argument that a sense of religion and belief of God is slipping from the fibers that bind this nation together. If we continue to turn away from the morality taught in the bible then an unspeakable calamity will fall upon America and on the world as a whole. America is the last stronghold of Chrisitianity. Should it ever collapse then the world will fall into the clutches of the devil. We will certainly know the meaining of suffering when that happens.
The unfortunate consequence